Hasse: Serpentes Ignei in Deserto album review – dazzling performances bring this oratorio of snakes on a plain to life

Thibault Noally captures the exuberance of Hasse’s 18th-century ‘church opera’ originally written for female voices

LPO/Kremer/Roslavets/Boreyko review – an evening of raw and uncompromising music

The darkness of Shostakovich’s Symphony No 13 and Schoenberg’s A Survivor From Warsaw had a haunting modern resonance

BCMG/Paterson review – amplification dulls both Eötvös and Birtwistle

The late Peter Eötvös’s slender and nuanced Secret Kiss didn’t hold the attention; works by Julian Anderson, Lisa Illean and Rebecca Saunders fared better in this Birmingham Contemporary Music Group concert

Tosca review – Bryn Terfel’s lustful Scarpia returns to intimidate and compel

Natalya Romaniw brings vulnerability and depth to Tosca and, in the pit, Eun Sun Kim conducts with subtlety and delicacy in this revival of Jonathan Kent’s staging

‘Opera should be an unstoppable art form’: Royal Opera announce Netia Jones as associate director

The Royal Ballet and Opera have created a new role, allowing Jones to drive development and new commissions

The week in classical: The Elixir of Love; Septura; Bone-Afide – review

Donizetti’s sparkling romcom is on a wartime footing in ENO’s sitcom-style new production. And in a great week for brass premieres, enter 22 trombones…

Howells & Wood: Quartets album review – early and late-flowering first world war string quartets

Lost on a train and reconstructed, Herbert Howells’s youthful String Quartet No 3 is paired with the String Quartet No 6 by his teacher, Charles Wood

Philharmonia/Blomstedt review – the collective performance of a lifetime

The 97-year-old conductor led the Philharmonia – on exceptional form – in one of the finest performances of Mahler’s epic Ninth Symphony one is likely to hear.

Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra /Wigglesworth/McCarthy review – an impressive, auspicious start

Mark Wigglesworth began his tenure as the BSO’s Chief conductor with a bold programme of Wagner, Walton and Ravel’s Piano Concerto for the Left Hand – to which Nicholas McCarthy brought delicacy and drama

Five-hour avant garde Philip Glass opera among ENO’s Manchester plans

Programme for company’s move north includes Glass’s Einstein on the Beach, Britten and a new youth company

Adèle Hugo: Mélodies sur des poèmes de Victor Hugo review – a daughter’s voice uncovered

Composer Richard Dubugnon has given colourful life to previously unknown songs by the great French author’s youngest child, whose life descended into tragedy

Tom Coult: Pieces That Disappear album review – strikingly rooted and assured works from young composer

This distinctive collection brings cabaret, country dances and a streak of melancholy to bear

More endurance than you can shake a stick at: does conducting keep you young?

The 97-year-old Herbert Blomstedt is in London today to conduct the Philharmonia. He is one of a very long line of maestros working well into old age

Morley/Montague Rendall/Martineau review – Wolf’s Liederbuch sounds exquisite

The singers were on wonderfully expressive form for this performance of Hugo Wolf’s song cycle – one of music’s great disquisitions on the nature of love

Orchestre symphonique de Montréal/Payare review – colour, pace and silky strings

The North American musicians and their Venezuelan conductor brought a programme of Habibi, Berlioz and Beethoven – with Javier Perianes the soloist in his first piano concerto – to London